Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
Professor Foust
Daisy Aguilar
It is said that there are many different versions to a story. There is one persons story, then there is an other person’s story, and then, there is the truth. “Our memories change each time they are recalled. What we recall is only a facsimile of things gone by.” Dobrin, Arthur. "Your Memory Isn't What You Think It Is." (online magazine). Psychology Today. July 16, 2013. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/am-i-right/201307/your-memory-isnt-what-you-think-it-is. Every time a story is told, it changes. From Disney movies to books, to what we tell our friends and colleagues. Sometimes the different sides to the story challenge the
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Townsend examines the following months on the settling of the English, as well as Pocahontas’s kidnapping, to her imprisonment, down to her marriage to John Rolfe, her conversion to Christianity, and finally her death.
A major contrast between the Disney Stories and movie of Pocahontus, was that they had failed to mention her kidnapping. Pocahontas’ kidnapping was unjust and surprising as it was by the community of the man who would be her husband and later the father to her child, although Pocahontas had already been married since the age of twelve or thirteen to a man named Kocoom. Pocahontas’ early marriage was then ended when her warrior Kocoom had then disappeared, for reasons unknown. After this disappearance, Pocahontas later then married to John Rolfe as she had the choice to choose any man she wanted without the fear of being judged and called cold for her remarriage. Another major difference between Disneys portrayal of Pocahontas and Townsend’s portrayal of Pocahontas is her decision to be baptized. Although it would have been seen as a betrayal to her tribe, Pocahontas chose to be baptized, with the consent of her father. Even though it was well known to Powhatan (Pocahontas’ father), that with his consent of Pocahontas’ baptism (now Rebecca), he would lose not his people’s respect, but as well as their trust, he
Pocahontas’ story has been changed throughout history. Her story has been subverted because people wanted to make it more interesting so that they could make more money and fame of off it. Townsend explains the choices that Pocahontas and her father made as well as the trajectory of her life by using other people’s accounts of her and how they perceived her. There were no documents recorded from Pocahontas.
Sophie Gilbert says that the “environmentalist message” was powerful and unique. The facts, sadly, are not so positive. The movie would have still been great, even if names where changed, but would it still have appeal? Many people, children and adults alike, grow up thinking that they know the story of Pocahontas. A Powhatan Chief, Roy Crazy Horse, stated “It is unfortunate that this sad story, which Euro-Americans should find embarrassing, Disney makes ‘entertainment’ and perpetuates a dishonest and self-serving myth at the expense of the Powhatan Nation”, although creators of the movie may have thought that it would be harmless, people could still find offense to Pocahontas. James Allen, who knew the history of Matoaka, decided that “turning a story like that into something fluffy and “empowering” is just uncomfortable” and if the real history was ever made known among the public, people would most likely agree.
Townsend believed that there was nothing more that Pocahontas could have done for her people – she was kidnapped, took on a different culture, and married an English man, all for the sake of her society. “Now was the greatest labor to win her, guilty perhaps of her fathers wrongs, though not knowne as she supposed to go
Pocahontas was captured by Samuel Argall and during her captivity she became pregnant. The father was a mystery, but she was supposed to be marrying me. We got married on April 5, 1614 and then her baby was born on January 30, 1615. We were blessed with thousands of acres of land from Pocahontas’ father, Chief Powhatan. My wife, our baby, and I traveled to England on the ship, Treasurer, in 1616. Pocahontas was soon addressed by the name, Princess Pocahontas, because she was so widely respected. While in England, we visited Queen Anne and King James I. While in London, Pocahontas met John Smith who she thought was dead. We stayed and toured England for several months, and on our trip back home Pocahontas became very ill and died. I returned back to Virginia while Thomas, our son, stayed in England. I soon married the daughter of a colonist. Her name was Jane Pierce. Soon after we married, we had a daughter and named her Elizabeth. My house was on my tobacco plantation, and it was attacked by stupid Native Indians. I honestly don’t know why they hate me so much. It’s devastating. There, I was left stranded with no help, just lying in the grass. It’s my time to go…
In Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, all of these things are expressed, and she discusses her entire journey through captivity. One of the main things to take away from this narrative is the amount of faith that is portrayed throughout all the difficult times. Anyone who were to read this captivity narrative would recognize how important Rowlandson’s faith was to her and her family; even though the Indians did
While America today is ruled by numerous ethnicities, it seems implausible that at one point the majority of its soil was ruled by one of the lowest percentages of the population today- American Indians. Nowadays one may ponder exactly what happened to this group, and an outstanding source for this information is Camilla Townsend’s Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, which describes the relationship between the English settlers and the Powhatan tribe. Even though their affairs appeared to start out peaceful, they ended up being extremely inconsistent through the book.
Mary Rowlandson was a colonial English woman who was captured and held captive by Indians for just over 11 weeks during King Phillip’s war. In 1682, six years later, Mrs. Rowlandson’s account of those 11 weeks was published under the title A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. In her detailed description, it is observed that Mary lived in fear of her captures. Even though she thought of them as savages, the tribulations she faced renewed her faith and walk with God.
The Pocahontas story is one of assimilation. The true Pocahontas emigrated to England and is buried there. The Disney version of Pocahontas however is far more romantic. In the true story, the daughter of a Native American chief fell in love with the head group leader of English settlers. She risked her own life to save Englishmen John Smith. Thanks to her devotion, smith and the colony of Jamestown survived. This marked the first successful English settlement of the new world. Later on in life she was Baptized to become a Christian. She was then christened by "Lady Rebecca". At first Pocahontas was not accepted by the colonists in the same manner as an Englishwoman would’ve been. One reason is due to her name “Pocahontas” which was of Indian dissent. Eventually she assimilated in society, which serves as an analogy to the real world. This is because in the real world cultures assimilate in nations they’ve immigrated
Moreover, research also examined the effects of age on participants in regards to the onset of false memory. With materials and testing procedures that have been repeatedly found to produce higher levels of false memory, older children are more susceptible to generating false memories than younger children (Holliday, Brainerd & Reyna, 2010). This is particularly realistic in the DRM lists (Holliday, Brainerd &
In the lecture, Mirrored Archetype: The Contrasting Cultural Roles of La Malinche and Pocahontas tells that Pocahontas rescue to John Smith from execution by laying her over his head . In the film show the same action Pocahontas opposes that they kill Smith and tells his father not to do that he can learn things about him. Another of the scene of the film shows when Pocahontas went to live with the English and a lady proposes that if she wants to be
Price also points out that “She was curious about English and she enjoyed being among them. In Smith, she had found an Englishman who would speak her language.” (Price 127) When Pocahontas as well as her people are informed that he has passed on, she leaves the English settlement for a short period of time. At this point she is treated kindly and before being married to Rolfe she is converted to Christianity. While in marriage, Pocahontas plays a significant role in saving the colony from the hands of her
In this chapter shows how a greedy John Smith did what he wanted and got what he desired. John would do many things to get what he wanted, such as hold the chief at gunpoint. According to John smith, Wahunsenaca wanted to kill him while he was visiting the one time village. Even though the Powhatan philosophy is acquiring more through respectful and peaceful means, rather than going into war with other people to settle a dispute. Even though allegedly Pocahontas sneaked out in the middle of the night to go to john and tell him that he was going to be killed. This does not make sense being that it would be extremely hard to sneak out of a Powhatan village. With all the guards and people watching over her, she could not have been able to get
John Smith was born in 1580, so he might have been a 27 year old blond and ruggedly handsome young man, but it is doubtful. But as for Pocahontas, she was born in 1595 and probably around the age of 11 or 12 when she first met John Smith in 1607. Pocahontas, when meeting John Smith, being such a small, young girl, not a woman, was not likely to have yet come into the womanly figure that the Walt Disney Company animated, if ever at all. Images of Pocahontas portray her as being shorter and plumper than the Barbie doll figure Disney gave her on screen. The clothing that Disney draws the characters wearing, especially Pocahontas, even rings of falsities because it was customary for them to have loose cloths draped over them. Pocahontas’ level of beauty is often questioned and really not known, but it is known that John Rolfe, not John Smith, fell madly in love with her, so there had to have been something beautiful about this Indian woman or “savage” as he called her when writing to ask permission to marry her.
Memory does not work like a video camera, smoothly recording every detail. Instead, memory is more of a constructive process. We remember the details that we find most important and relevant. Due to the reconstructive nature of memory, the assimilation of old and new information has the ability to cause vulnerable memories to become distorted. This is also known as the misinformation effect (Loftus, 1997). It is not uncommon for individuals to fill in memory gaps with what they assume they must have experienced. We not only distort memories for events that we have observed, but, we may also have false memories for events that never occurred at all. False memories are “often created by combing actual memories with suggestions received from
Here is the real-life story about Pocahontas, not the Disney nor fairytale that most people are likely to recognize her by. Pocahontas was an empowering Powhatan Native American woman during the early 17th century. She was born into the Powhatan tribe in Werowocomoco, Virginia around 1595 and passed away in Gravesend, England of 1617. The family of tribes that Pocahontas belonged to was called the Tsenacommacah, and they occupied the region of Tidewater, Virginia. In her home-tribe, she was considered to be the favourite daughter of the chief, Powhatan. Her real name was actually Matoaka but the Algonquians nicknamed her Pocahontas which roughly translates to “happy little brat”. Later, she is known to be Rebecca Rolfe who lived in England